Prime Minister Jennifer L. Harper
Jennifer Louise "Jenny" Harper (born 28 February 1988, in Deansford, Norfolk Island) is the 53rd Prime Minister of the Hook Islands, assuming office after the resignation of Prime Minister Thomas Anderson, and formerly was a Member of Parliament (MP) in Stamford House, serving Norfolk Island's Deansford Grove. Her skill in handling issues in her constituency caught the attention of Thomas Anderson, who made Harper his Minister for Internal Affairs in 2013. Following the resignations of Prime Minster Thomas Anderson and First Minister Mark Clyde on 31 July 2015, Harper became the 53rd and current Prime Minister of the Hook Islands, and the first female Prime Minister. Early Life Harper was born on 28 February 1988 at the Grafton Medical Centre in Grafton, an area of the city of Deansford. She was the second of four children born to Darren James Harper (born 1961) and Louise Katherine Harper (née Moore, born 1963). Her siblings are Ryan (born 1984), Zack (born 1990) and Elizabeth (born 1992). Unlike most past Prime Ministers, she was educated in public schools. She initially attended Rutherford Primary School, a school in Grafton, followed by Apple Harbour Secondary School for Girls, where she left at 16, passing all of her SEGs except English Literature. She took business studies at Horn Hill Tertiary School. Harper enrolled in the Royal University of Boston after tertiary school when she was 18; she graduated in May 2010 with a Master of Laws (ML) degree in International Business and Commercial Law. Early Political Career Harper stood at the 2011 Deansford Grove by-election for the Liberal Party, which was prompted by the death of Nationalist MP Erik Simmons due to cancer. The seat had been continuously held by the Nationalist Party since 1998 and the new Nationalist candidate George Fletcher was expected to win easily. However, Harper's promises of better education and an upgrade to the local police were enough to win her the by-election by a slim margin. Ahead of the 2013 general election, Harper was selected as the Liberal Party candidate for Deansford Grove for a second time. She was elected with 37,173 votes (57.8%), almost double the total of second-placed Paul Haywood of the Conservative Party, who took 19,061 votes (29.3%). Minister for Internal Affairs On 8 December 2013, Harper was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs by Prime Minister Thomas Anderson as part of his first Cabinet; she became the eighth woman to hold one of the major offices in parliament. As Minister of Internal Affairs, Harper was also a member of the Council of National Security. In January 2014, Harper faced her first major national security incident as Internal Affairs Minister with the Waltham Tertiary School Shootings. She delivered her first major speech in the Stamford House as Internal Affairs Minister in a statement on this incident, later visiting the victims with the Minister of Defence, Richard Wiley. In March, Harper banned the Muslim preacher Saleem el-Raad from entering the Hook Islands. In late August 2014, Harper announced plans for a temporary cap on visas for non-EU migrants with the exceptions of people from the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.